Sorceress Found Read online

  Polishing her grandmother’s entire sword collection had seemed like a suitable task when she’d jerked awake from a nightmare at some ungodly hour before dawn and couldn’t get back to sleep. Normally nightmares and insomnia didn’t plague her, but there was something new—a restlessness which reared its head every night just as the stars faded and the first pink tinted the sky with a hint of dawn. Only one thing calmed the restlessness—sitting with him, her stone gargoyle.

  But she couldn’t spend every moment sitting in her glade with a glorified garden ornament. To prevent herself from seeking a statue’s company, she slipped into the bathroom instead of the direction her heart craved.

  She splashed cold water on her face for several moments. When she worked up the nerve to look in the mirror, a woman with dark circles under her eyes stared back. Even the golden light of dawn didn’t make her look any less haggard.

  All the signs pointed to the same problem—the inability to sleep, polishing her grandmother’s sword collection in the middle of the night, wanting to spend hour after hour with a stone statue under the shadow of her favorite tree, a growing dependence on coffee—yep, she’d lost her mind.

  Back in the kitchen, the solitude registered heavier now that her hands weren’t busy. Mechanically, she wandered over to the coffee pot and filled the largest mug she could find.

  She was just putting the cream back when she noticed one of her grandmother’s dog-eared romances sitting on top of the fridge, half-hidden under a pile of junk mail.

  Taking a sip of her coffee, she eyed the romance. It was one of those hormones-take-notice, blush-inducing covers, complete with drops of water cascading down the hero’s picture-perfect chest. Gran always claimed a little escapism never hurt anyone. With a grin, Lillian tucked the paperback under her arm. As an afterthought, she scooped up her cell phone on her way to the back door.

  Outside, the air, crisp with a hint of last night’s fog, greeted her nose. She loved when the fog was beginning to burn away in the sun. Clean, fresh—it was one of her favorite scents. Gravel crunched under her shoes as she walked the twisting garden path. A cedar maze with twelve-foot-tall walls stretched out before her.

  A few feet ahead, a tan-and-brown blur streaked across the gravel path, its tail pointed to the sky, and darted between the green cedar walls. As she followed the resident chipmunk deeper into the living corridors, her earlier worries fell away.

  Reaching the maze’s middle, she came to a small clearing ringed by upright waist-high stones. At its center, a juvenile redwood grew strong and proud, dwarfing its surroundings. Ten feet from the tree’s trunk, a stone statue lurked, partially concealed by dense shadows.

  He crouched over his stone perch with a knee resting on the pedestal and his wings mantled around him like a vast cloak. While his one hand rested on his raised knee, his other arm gripped his side in a rather odd position for a sculpture. It saddened her a little, for there was a narrowness about his squinted eyes and a crease in his brow that hinted at pain. Interestingly, he didn’t look beaten. His shoulders were broad, head proud, legs corded with muscle, strength and majesty in his every line.

  “Hello, old friend.” She looked up into his face, with its burly muzzle and curving fangs. His muzzle merged flawlessly into wide cheekbones. Large eyes were hooded by a broad forehead. Crowning his head were two massive horns that curved back and up like an African Waterbuck’s. A thick mane of hair flowed in a stony river midway down his back.

  The gargoyle was one of her first childhood memories. At the age of eight, after a near-drowning accident stole her memories, she’d been drawn to the stone statue as if he was pivotal to her survival. She’d always assumed her strange need to be near him was a result of her childhood trauma. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  She brushed a few spider webs and tree needles from his pedestal. Then, like she’d done since childhood, she climbed up the pedestal to settle upon the gargoyle’s knee. While he was a little cold and hard, he still made a good chair. She opened the book and leaned back against his arm.

  *

  Lillian jerked awake to the dual sounds of her cell phone chirping and her book crunching against the gravel. Her heel slipped off the edge of the pedestal, and with a desperate grab at a stone arm, she avoided joining her book on the ground.

  “Insomnia … going to break my neck … my own damn fault.”

  She grumbled while she climbed down and hunched over to pick up her book and the now silent cell phone. Straightening, she realized she’d slept half the morning away. So much for the work she’d planned to get done. She tapped the phone and listened to the voicemail.

  “Sorry, sis.” Her brother’s voice was tinny because of the cell phone’s bad reception. “Our flight was delayed again, imagine that. Gran says she trusts you to hold down the fort and that our call has absolutely nothing to do with her worries about how the contractors are likely running roughshod over you. Heck, personally, I think the spa could be twice as big.” There was a surprised sounding grunt and then Jason’s voice became muffled on the message. It sounded like there may have been a fight for possession of the phone. Then, laughter in his voice, he came back on. “Gran says not to kill yourself cleaning house. Anyway, see you way later. Bye.”

  Shaking her head at her family’s eccentricities, she supposed everyone thought their family odd. But surely, Lillian’s was stranger than most. Well, at least the delay would give her a chance to hang the sword collection back on the wall and get the rest of the house in order before Gran and Jason returned.

  *

  With a final pat of the maze’s cedar walls, she exited her sanctuary. Three steps later, she skidded to a halt. A stranger dressed in a gray business suit strolled along the garden path to her left. Hands clasped behind his back, he studied the perennials on either side of him.

  Occasionally, patrons from her family’s spa would wander over into the private gardens, but the spa was closed, undergoing renovations. Besides, this man looked out of place. Alarm hummed through her veins and sweat began trickling down her spine.

  Lillian eased back toward the walls of the maze just as the lone man raised a hand in greeting. The gesture was normal enough. She relaxed a bit and waited for him.

  He’d almost reached her side when she heard the crunch of many feet on gravel coming from the path to her right.

  She whirled around as more strangers emerged from around a big, ground-sweeping magnolia. There were nine of them: five men and four women. She didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, but every last one of them stalked forward with the smooth grace of predators as they arranged themselves in a semicircle in front of her.

  Lillian backed up, but there was nowhere to run except into the green leafy corridors behind her.

  The maze which had always sheltered her from childhood fears wouldn’t keep her safe from real danger.

  Chapter 2

  The shortest among the group, the man who had first waved at Lillian, stepped toward her. Dressed in a well-tailored business suit, his appearance spoke of money, yet his shaggy, gray-peppered brown hair was at odds with his otherwise trim appearance. Other than that, he would have been an unmemorable fellow—from a distance.

  Up close, she could detect the lie.

  Hostility radiated off him in waves.

  “You may call me Alexander.” The short man smiled, but the cold glint in his eyes canceled out any friendliness which might have been there. “My associates will not harm you if you come with us. I have a few questions for you.” He gestured for his people to give her room. All but two of them moved.

  The remaining two, a woman with dark hair similar to Lillian’s own and a big man with a six o’clock shadow, turned their unblinking gazes to the shorter man. Alexander narrowed his eyes and said something too low for Lillian to hear.

  The man in need of a shave backed off, but the woman showed her reluctance by the way she changed her stance without giving ground to Alexander’s command. She turn
ed her feral eyes upon Lillian and tilted her head to sniff at the air.

  Too frigging weird. Time to leave. “I don’t know who you are, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Perhaps I can help you find your way back to the road.” Lillian rushed the words together in her hurry. “The gardens can be confusing.”

  “I assure you, there has been no mistake. I can smell your power.”

  I can smell your power?

  With luck she could ditch them in the maze.

  A breeze picked up and whipped her hair into her face. While she’d fought to clear her vision, she realized she’d missed something. The others looked past her, deeper into the maze, in the direction the breeze had come. The woman with dark hair and feral eyes backed away with a hiss.

  First singly, and then in twos and threes, the others retreated from the green cedar walls. Lillian didn’t know what was hiding in the maze, but it couldn’t be much worse than this group of menacing strangers. Even if they hadn’t blocked her path back to the house, instinct demanded she run into the concealing greenery.

  She bolted into the maze’s entrance and ran as if monsters out of her darkest nightmare were giving chase. The first branch of the maze loomed in front of her. She darted to the right. Two more sharp turns and she was well into the complex maze.

  The others hunted her, crashing through the narrow rows. By the sounds of snapping branches and swearing, someone was trying to go through the walls instead of around them.

  She was nearly halfway to the center before the noise of pursuit started to fade. If fate was kind, her pursuers were now hopelessly lost. Her slight advantage would only last until she emerged on the other side, but it might be enough to escape into the forest. And the lengthening shadows of dusk would give her an advantage in her home forest. If she got that far.

  When she emerged in the center of the maze, she ran past the first ring of stones. She was under the shadow of her redwood by the time a figure raced from another opening. She froze behind the tree. The man didn’t see her and ran toward the path leading out of the maze.

  Damn, he’d be ahead of her now. She hugged the tree trunk while she caught her breath. This wasn’t going well. Think, think, think.

  A movement at the east entrance betrayed another man a moment before he walked into the clearing. He sniffed at the air as he jogged up to the first ring of stones. His eyes locked on her tree. A smile slowly spread across his face.

  He reached the first stone and rested his hand on it. With a yowl, he jerked back. Smoke rose up from the stone like grease dripping onto the coals of a barbecue. While that was an unusual sight, she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

  Survival first, weird shit later.

  More strangers appeared, spit out by the maze. No one else tried to enter the perimeter of the waist-high ring of stones, even though there was plenty of room between each stone to pass without touching them. A tense silence engulfed the clearing.

  Alexander entered last, unhurried. With his head tilted to one side, he looked from her to the redwood and back again.

  “I’d thought the ones with strength like yours had gone extinct centuries ago,” he said, as if his words explained everything. After another half dozen steps, he stopped outside the ring of stones. He frowned at them a moment. “Not that it matters. It’s your magic I want. You have two choices: surrender your magic, or swear allegiance to serve my lords.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that handy circle of stones seems to keep you away. Unless you plan on camping out here for the next few days, I think you better move on.” She didn’t believe for a minute they’d actually do what she advised, and she doubted telling them to screw-off would have much of an effect, but maybe if she kept them talking she’d eventually wake up from this nightmare.

  He smiled, a charming curve of lips, then he tilted his head in the direction of the house and his merriment vanished. “That’s a grand house, and these gardens, they’re rather large for just you to take care of. If I wait, I imagine your family will come home soon. Your husband and children, perhaps?” His expression took on a faraway look as if he were thinking about something else. “Or am I wrong? You have the ageless look of all dryads, but perhaps you’re actually very young, newly come to your powers. Is that why I’ve never sensed you? No matter. I’m sure you have loved ones and they’ll be along shortly.”

  Lillian couldn’t hide in the shadow of the tree forever. As he’d said, her family would return home and be captured by these freaks. Clearly, Alexander wanted something from her. Her magic, he’d said. She didn’t know what he was smoking, but she wasn’t buying. Even seeing the stone smoke when the other man touched it could have been a trick. However, that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.

  “I am patient up to a point,” Alexander said. “If you make me go through these stones to get you, my patience will run out before I reach you. Your choice.”

  She shook her head. He frowned and his eyebrows scrunched together. Without another word, he focused on the stone standing nearest to him and began a chant low in his throat. Placing one hand upon its surface, he grimaced as power arced, its blue light lancing out from one stone to the next in line. Unseen until now, a dome of energy encircled her and her tree.

  “This can’t be happening,” she whispered.

  But it was.

  Whatever the small man was doing weakened the dome. Where before the dome had appeared a solid blue, its coloration was now patchy and frayed. A fissure formed along the base of the stone he touched, the finest of cracks. She didn’t want to know what would happen when it gave way.

  Behind Alexander, a disturbance in the ranks distracted her and she missed the exact moment the stone shattered. Shards flew in all directions, damaging the other stones and cutting down meadow grasses and prairie flowers like a sickle. Agony bloomed to life along her hip. More along her waist.

  She should have been safe hiding behind the tree’s trunk, yet some of the stone shrapnel must have hit her. Blood, hot and sticky, dampened her t-shirt and the waist of her jeans. Seconds later, the burning sensation turned numb. A deep cold started to throb in her side, as if her life was being sucked away by the wound.

  She stumbled over a root and slammed her shoulder on one of the redwood’s ground-sweeping branches. Teetering against it, she gathered herself, then ducked under the branch to see what was going on. Instinct guided her eyes up the tree. Two thin, blade-like fragments of stone were embedded in the side of the tree’s trunk.

  Pink liquid dripped off the fragments and dropped onto the ground below. More ran down the trunk. Astonished, she touched the liquid. It was slick like sap, but smelt coppery.

  Tree sap mixed with blood?

  Another rivulet flowed down the trunk and coated her fingers.

  Her legs grew rubbery. Numbness crept up from the wounds, seeping through her blood and across her thoughts. Screams and snarls interrupted the numbness. Had some of the other creatures been caught by the exploding stones?

  “Your life blood is watering the dirt and leaf litter. Such a waste of magic,” Alexander mused.

  What? Can’t I bleed to death in peace? Lillian twisted toward Alexander and winced as pain stabbed through her hip. The little man stood a few feet away, admiring the tree, his head tilted to look up at its top, thirty-five feet above his head. He walked around its circumference, studying it from different angles.

  Resting against the tree took some of the weight off her injured leg. She eased one hand above her head. Sliding her fingers along the bark, she sought the rivulets of liquid and used them to guide her to the first stone fragment. Her fingers closed on a cold, sharp object. She clawed at it with her nails, dragging it from the wood.

  Agony burned in her hip. She embraced the pain. It was better than the cold sucking sensation of having her life leeched out of her injury. Her fingers worked at the second piece of stone as Alexander finished skirting the tree and came to face her.

 
With a grunt, she freed the second shard and flung it with all her strength. Sap-blood flew in a splattering arc.

  Her aim was true and the blood-coated stone collided with Alexander. He screamed in agony, a tone of glass-shattering quality. She winced. Hopefully such an unholy sound signaled a mortal injury.

  The fragment was embedded in his neck where an artery should have been. The stone smoked and hissed. Other drops of her tree’s blood had eaten away at his skin, like she’d tossed acid upon him. A human would have hit the ground, dead by now. She didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t human.

  The creature collapsed to his knees but continued to smile at her. Oh, he was in pain. She could see it in his pinched expression: the white skin, drawn tight across his face, the slight grayish hue of his complexion. But it was the sharp fangs when he hissed at her which gave him away. A vampire? Impossible. There was no such thing. Yet what else could he be?

  Another blonde male and a muscular female joined Alexander. While they were seeing to his wounds, Lillian took a step forward. Her sight blurred strangely and she swayed. Instead of the carnage of the glade, an image of Lillian’s grandmother stood before her, eyes closed and face serene.

  Gran’s hands moved in a precise, intricate pattern as she chanted low in her throat. There was a soft-edged quality about her. She looked faded, like an unfocused old picture. That’s when she knew her grandmother wasn’t really there.

  “Lillian, get to the gargoyle,” her grandmother barked out the sharp command, her voice echoing as if from a long way away, but she still heard the underlying fear. “Use your blood. Wake him. You’re stronger than the Riven.”

  Lillian shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She slumped against the tree. A low-hanging branch offered support. She wanted to believe she was hearing her grandmother’s voice. Obeying her commands sounded like a good idea. Lillian gauged the distance from her tree to the gargoyle’s statue: a few feet, ten maybe, fifteen at the most.